Then she got Jimmie and a bald man from the Lexonia, named Poins, to take her again to Victor’s. But the man named Poins grew objectionable, and Jimmie went on the road. So Cora had to think of some other way. She had every other Saturday afternoon off, and she went to Victor’s alone. Her distrust of herself wore off as men looked at her. Women said: “Third-from-the-end, last row, heavies.” But do men scorn the third-from-the-end, last row, heavies? They do not, and if, in addition to the kind of figure women scorn, she has the kind of vivid coloring they imitate, men will glance. But Cora never returned the glances. She was of an indomitable singleness of purpose. Which is an even greater asset than a third-from-the-end figure and vivid coloring.
Cora would sit in the lobby, where she could watch Larry dancing, walking among the tables, buying drinks for the cabaret girls, or listening, with half an ear, to the Countess’ pointed remarks. Of course, he never noticed Cora at all. But he never noticed anybody, really. He always appeared to be having the time of his life, with one eye on the door. Waiters danced about him, and even Albert, the head waiter, leaned over the back of his chair and made little comments from behind a scarcely moving lip, and Larry would laugh—laugh uproariously with a fine display of teeth, and unsmiling eyes, and then stop in the middle of a laugh to investigate someone coming in at the door. There was a restlessness about him, as though he were perpetually expecting somebody. Cora hardly ever took her eyes off his table. That was how she happened, one day, to see the Countess go into the dressing-room. She followed.
The Countess, after washing her hands, turned to accept a towel from the bored maid with whom she exchanged sophisticated pleasantries, totally forgetful of her two rings on the washstand. Outwardly calm, inwardly trembling with excitement, Cora busied herself at the basin, obscuring it from view. The Countess, with a last pat remark to the maid over her left shoulder, and a last long look at herself in the pier glass, sailed out. Cora, deftly sweeping the rings into her bag while the powder guardian replaced her treasures in the drawer, followed the satin heels up the stairs and across the dining-room. As she approached the table from which Larry had risen to seat the Countess, she had a moment of hesitation. Not the value of the rings, but stage fright, almost deflected her from her purpose. Then she remembered that Aperman made suits for Mary Wickham, and she went ahead.
That night, she took that little thought about wanting a thing badly enough out of the laboratory at the back of her brain, and into the front room. After all, it had been so simple. She had met Lawrence Barker, millionaire—she, assistant housekeeper at the Lexonia—and he had asked her to sit at his table. True, stage fright had overcome her, and she had declined. But he had asked her.
Two weeks later, she went boldly into Victor’s and took a table. She had seen other girls do it. The Countess and Larry were already there. To the waiter she said she was waiting. She was waiting for the Countess, who sat facing her not far away, to look over. At last, after a nervous, dry-throated interval, the Countess did look over. But that was all. Her glance, roving about the room, rested on Cora a second and passed. Cora experienced a sinking within her. The next time the Countess’ eye roved, however, Cora was ready, and arrested it with an eager nod and a smile. A moment, the Countess looked puzzled. Then, with a shrug, she nodded meaninglessly and looked farther.
At that moment a bored young man with thin legs and thick hair, asked Cora to dance. She refused curtly. Tears of envy, rage and disappointment had gathered in her eyes. Just then, Larry Barker looked over and saw her. If there was one thing that could arrest Larry Barker’s wandering attention, it was a tear.
He leaned back toward the Countess.
“Who’s that baby—sitting alone?” He jerked his smooth, taffy-colored head in the direction of Cora.
“Baby?” the Countess laughed. “Baby elephant, I guess. I can’t place her.” Then she laughed again. “I thought you liked lines—not curves.”
“Sure I do.” He patted her hand placatingly. “Only, if that couch cootie is bothering her—”
“Now, Larry, stop saving women. It’s a habit with you. And they don’t want to be saved. Anyway, that one looks as if she could save herself from anything except curvature of the silhouette.”
The tears that had gathered in Cora’s eyes brimmed over. Larry, turning uneasily again, saw them. He got up and went over to her. There was a free-masonry about the regular crowd at Victor’s. Besides, one did not need an introduction to a girl who was crying. It was the one time Larry felt perfectly at his ease with any girl. He always could make them stop. He had a way with him.
He was somewhat startled when she brightened visibly at the sight of him and actually smiled.
“Want to dance?” he asked, a little self-consciously. Cora had too much sense. She wanted to stand out from the other girls he knew, but not just in that way. It almost seemed as though he were going to slip away again. She clouded up ominously.
“Oh, don’t! I say—what’s the matter?” And, as the storm seemed to grow more imminent with each expression of concern, he pulled the extra chair around to the side of the table and took her hand in both his.
“Tell Larry what’s the matter,” he began, and his voice soothed her and petted her and buoyed her up, all at once. It was his way.
“I—I’m lonely,” she blurted out. It was not what she had meant to say. Something about him had drawn it out of her.
“Poor little kid,” said Larry. “Poor—little—kid!” And he ordered drinks.
He did not stay with her long; just long enough to make the sun shine. There were too many other demands on his time. Besides, girls never interested him for long—except slim ones, with ash-blond hair and smooth, creamy skin.
Later, when he was dancing, she slipped out. At home, she examined once more her motto. For it had suddenly become that; hanging over the mantel in the parlor of her brain, practically the only decoration there. If you want a thing—badly enough…
He had told her to call him Larry. And he had told her to send Albert to let him know any time she came to Victor’s. Not so bad, even though it was his habit to issue invitations to the world and his wife to make merry at his expense. And they usually did. There wasn’t a girl in the show at Victor’s who didn’t know she could sit at a table all afternoon drinking (and if she weren’t fat-fearful, eating), and if she called, “Hello, Larry!” when he came in, he would settle the check. There was hardly one who had not at some time made use of the knowledge. And some depended on it.
During the next two weeks, Cora, though still not planning any actual campaign, began to think out some general lines of action, to stand out from the other girls, and in some way to break through his indifference.
At the end of a month, she had cause to congratulate herself. He had told her she was different from the other girls he knew. She neither flirted, drank, nor accepted presents. She had not told him about the Lexonia. He believed that she had plenty of money. It was not his nature to inquire too closely. And, besides, he was not sufficiently interested. It was enough for him that she was lonely, that she did not have the faculty of making real friends in New York—a thing that he understood only too well.
And about that time, she found the Achilles’ heel in his invulnerable disinterest. They were out motoring one Sunday. Cora was fond of motoring. It took Larry away from all those other people who were forever breaking in on them and dragging him away from her. It was quite a simple thing, after all, his weak spot. Larry Barker, ten-times millionaire, was home hungry.
After that, things moved more swiftly. He took her out every Sunday in the car, and as the spring wore on, he began really to enjoy those rides into the country. They were a relief from the fever heat of the week. They were restful and soothing. Cora loved them, too, but she hated the car, bright blue, silent, swift. When she figured what she could have done with the upkeep alone—!
Toward the
end of May, she began to feel a vague discontent with her motto. In spite of all her wanting, the thing was not making any headway. There was something lacking. The personal note seemed so hard to strike. There was nothing of me-and-thee-ness between them.
Then one day when they were out, Cora felt a disturbance in the man beside her. She looked up suspiciously. Passing them was a field-gray car, in which sat a slim, well-gowned woman with smooth, creamy skin. The woman never looked at them. And suddenly Larry leaned over Cora, and somewhat fiercely covered with his the two hands which lay in her lap.
“You don’t hate Larry, do you?” When she had answered him, he sank back into his corner in a brooding silence. Cora, in her pleasurable excitement, almost forgot about the field-gray car—until later she felt again that inexplicable disturbance in him and looked up in time to see it coming toward them once more.
“Who is that woman?” she asked.
He reddened.
“Mrs. Van Brot; my neighbor out at the Gardens.”
Cora thought then that she understood.
“Not very neighborly, is she?”
Larry’s features were drawn up with something like pain.
“No. Larry doesn’t register very high there.”
“Poor Larry!”
This time, she put out her hand. To her surprise, he raised it to his lips.
“I don’t see why you gave up your home at Clyde Gardens,” she ventured finally.
He shook his head.
“It wasn’t a home. There wasn’t any woman to make it one.”
Silence.
“A woman would be awfully lucky to be able to make a home for you. Most men don’t even know what a home should be. Someday, some woman will come along and—gosh, but she’ll be lucky!”
“Shucks! There are lots don’t think so. Larry with a home! Ha, ha!” He laughed mirthlessly.
She stole a hand into his.
“Funny place, the world,” she mused, aloud. “One person doesn’t want what another would give his life for!” Another little silence. Then: “If I had a home like yours at Clyde—”
Her voice was full of yearning.
“What would you do?”
She looked at him, her eyes luminous with a great eagerness.
“I’d—I’d—”
Almost she was at a loss. “I’d just be happy in it,” she said. Then, as he did not answer, she added again, with a sigh: “So happy!”
Larry looked down at her. And the temptation of making somebody so happy proved too much for him.
“Sister,” he said, his eyes more than ever like a solemn child’s, “I’m not much on love, but if you would be willing to take The Lodge with me thrown in—”
She persuaded him to keep their engagement a secret. She knew how slight was her hold on him, and she was always inclined to be prudent. She gave up her job and took a small apartment. Figuring six months at the outside for her engagement, she regulated her expenses (with some pangs and misgivings, it is true) so that her money would last over that time. From Larry she accepted neither money nor presents. She would stick to her role. Later, she would have all the pearls she desired and fur coats and real lace—perhaps. Now and then, as he was very careless, she swelled her account a little. But she never let him give her anything. It was a happy time for her, on the whole, though it did seem to be prolonging itself unnecessarily. But Cora had patience.
At the end of the fifth month, however, her patience began to grow thin. Her money was getting perilously low, in spite of the way she took advantage, more and more, of his carelessness. And he showed no ardent desire for the bridegroom’s role. The personal note was still lacking in their relations. He kissed her when they were alone, and petted her when she cried. But it began to irk her to be called “Sister.”
And Mrs. Van Brot was on her nerves. Somehow, that woman made her feel that there were things she would never have, even with Larry’s millions. And she always seemed to sense, when Mrs. Van Brot crossed the horizon, that Larry in some way slipped past her. She grew jealous of that woman with her unapproachable serenity and the air with which, she carried herself.
Cora began to inquire about her, but nobody seemed to know anything bad. She had apparently been very happy with John Van Brot, in spite of the thirty years’ disparity in their ages. She was very well liked, and entertained a great deal. Cora had determined that, expense or no expense, Mrs. Barker’s entertainments should throw Mrs. Van Brot’s into the dark shade. She grew to have a devouring hate for the woman, and, to fan her hate, bought all the papers and the society publications that had accounts of her. At last, when all her searching and inquiries unearthed nothing, she sent for Jimmie Bowker.
He had never even heard of Mrs. Van Brot. But he promised to try to find out something about her.
“What’s she like?” he inquired naturally.
Cora fished around among the Sunday supplements and handed him a sheet. She distinctly thought she saw him start. He examined the picture carefully, intently. Then he put his hand over the hair and, cocking his slightly bald, blond head on one side and closing one eye, continued the examination. And then, suddenly, he thrust it back at her, and it seemed to her he looked a little shaky.
“Do you know her?” asked Cora.
“No,” he answered.
She shook off the feeling that he was lying. Why should he lie?
“But you’ll see what you can find out about her?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. I want to know who she is and where she comes from. Nobody seems even to know what her name was. And I have to find out. I hate her!”
Again it seemed to Cora as though Jimmie looked peculiar. And, after he had gone, promising to do what he could, she pondered over the baffling look there had been in his eyes. What was it? She picked up the paper again, and, looking at it quickly, she seemed to catch something—then it eluded her again. She covered the hair with her hand as Jimmie had done, and—
Cora could not sleep all that night. And the next evening she could hardly wait for Larry’s greeting to ask him casually—oh, very casually:
“What’s Mrs. Van Brot’s first name?”
“Lydia,” he replied, and blushed.
But Cora failed to see the blush. She was too triumphant. She had been right. It was Lydia Holden, the girl whose face she had seen once from the drawer in Mrs. Holden’s bureau; the girl who had run off with the traveling man who was already married; the girl for whom Jimmie Bowker had cared. Actually, if one wanted a thing—badly enough…
It was the fourth of November and a day that Cora Bleyden never in her life forgot. Years later, when she had long since ceased to be Cora Bleyden, she could not think back on that day without emotion. For in that morning’s Town Talk there appeared an article which meant the end of Mrs. Van Brot, socially, forever. And, by a coincidence, that very morning Larry had set a day for their wedding. It was well. Her money was gone, and all that stood between her and calamity was the hundred dollars that Nella Rose had scraped together on receipt of Cora’s urgent letter. And she was on her way to The Lodge to give orders for redecorating to suit herself.
Indeed, as she sat back, the very air that whistled past the silent blue car seemed to be saying: “If you want a thing badly enough—”
A thing? Any number of things. Anything in life to be had for the wanting, if people only knew!
She passed to Larry her copy of Town Talk, open at the first page.
“There!” She was almost sick with surfeit of pleasurable sensation. “I guess there’s one person won’t be giving any more swell parties at Clyde Park and leaving you out!”
She was too engrossed in the whirlpool of her own emotions to note how he paled and how he trembled as he read. After he had finished reading, he sank into an apathy, so far beyond her reach that
she could not seem to connect with him anymore, at any point. She was impatient of any flaw in her triumphant happiness that day. She wanted everything to continue to rush forward. She put her hand into his. He pressed it mechanically. He was a million miles away. She felt like exploding a bomb to bring him back to earth—to her. Her eye lit on the copy of Town Talk, open on his knee.
“I did that,” she said, impelled in spite of her prudence, by the need of a high and constant pitch of excitement.
“You—what?”
She mistook it for incredulity that she could have achieved it.
“I did it. I found out who she was—myself—and I let them have it. The dirty snob!”
“You!” He was screaming. “You—!” His face was gray-white, and his eyes were black and starting from his head. “You—!”
He could not find a word for her, and, in his rage, he seized her by the shoulders—seized her and shook and shook and shook her, like a frightened rat. She did not cry out. The breath had left her body too suddenly. But her hat hung crazily by one pin, and a long strand of hair unloosened itself and dropped down across her face. Then he flung her back into the corner against the blue upholstery.
The car had stopped at The Lodge, and Reeves was at the door. Lawrence Barker flung himself out and disappeared up the path toward Ten Oaks, the Van Brot place. He was heading straight for the house, not knowing what he meant to do there, when a glint of yellow sweater deflected him to the pergola. She was in there alone—Mrs. Van Brot—her head buried on her arms on the little rustic table. She did not even look up when his feet crunched along the brown, dried leaves. She was crying. Mrs. Van Brot, the serene, the unapproachable, was crying, with her head on her arms, like a little girl.
If there was one thing on earth that Larry Barker could not stand, it was tears. And he did seem to know how to dry them. He had a way with him. And who was Lydia Holden to hold out against his way? A frightened, heart-sick, miserable girl of seven-and-twenty, who had lived so much, and braved so much, and suffered so much, that she might have a house of peace and esteem, only to find it suddenly tumbled about her ears. And he was the first who had come to her—he might be the only one; and his voice soothed and caressed and comforted her, and his eyes were full of sympathy and something that men have said with their eyes since time before time, and women have read and understood.
The Viola Brothers Shore Mystery Page 21
